Cliff Heegel joins Give an Hour Network

Today Dr. Cliff Heegel of Memphis announces that he has joined Give an Hour™, a nonpartisan, nonprofit national network of mental health professionals providing free counseling services to returning troops and their families.
Give an Hour™ offers services to veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and their family members. Family members are loosely defined to include married or unmarried partners, parents, siblings, aunts/uncles—anyone connected to this veteran who is suffering a psychological effect related to the veteran’s service.

“Currently, we have more than 4,400 licensed mental health professionals on our Give an Hour™ network,” notes Founder and President, Dr. Barbara Van Dahlen. “What our Veterans and their families and loved ones are experiencing as a result of deployments, traumatic brain injuries and other devastating physical injuries, post-traumatic stress and more, is incomprehensible to the general population. The sheer number of people being affected makes it virtually impossible for the very competent but overtaxed military health care system to provide help to everyone who needs it,” says Dr. Van Dahlen. “We are so proud that Dr. Heegel has joined our efforts.”

Give an Hour™ hopes to recruit to its network 10 percent, or 40,000, of the approximately 400,000 licensed mental health professionals in the United States. With an average fee of $100 an hour, this would save the military and the taxpayer $4 million per week in mental health services costs.

Other mental health professionals who are interested in donating counseling services to returning veterans and their families must agree to give one hour per week for a minimum of a year.